In New York a couple of weeks ago I popped in to MoMa (well I queued up for ages and then fought my way in) where there is a small but nonetheless worthwhile show of George Lois’s famous Esquire covers. On a light table sat this transparency - a working mock-up of one of the most famous magazine covers of all time.

More than the famous finished covers that lined the walls opposite, this seemed to me a more revealing, explicit illustration of the skills of a great art director. Sure it’s a strong idea, but there is plenty of scope for it to go horribly wrong (as some of the recent ‘tributes’ to Lois’s covers unfortunately underline). It took huge skill to get from that to this…

There’s a great piece about Lois and that shoot here

Also at MoMa at the moment is Olafur Eliasson’s Take Your Time show which anyone who loved his Weather Project installation at Tate Modern will enjoy. The MoMA show is on a smaller scale but does include a hugely enjoyable room where, thanks to a kind of lantern in the middle

strips of colour and shadows of the occupants are cast on the walls

which reminded me of overprinting…

….Oh, and downstairs I found this poster by Scott King

which made me laugh out loud… people stared… it was embarrassing…

and upstairs there’s a bunch of work by 2×4

All of this sitting happily in the Museum of Modern Art - why doesn’t Tate Modern feature graphic design?